The undemocratic democracy in Ghana

Ghana’s uninterrupted democracy started in 1992, which marked the beginning of the fourth republic. Since then Ghana has seen four (4) different presidents. On 7th December 2016, Ghana will go to the polls to elect the 5th president of the 4th republic of Ghana.

This year’s election, like any other elections held in Ghana, has witness a lot of stakeholders and individuals campaigning for peace before, during and after the elections. The campaigns are important because Ghanaians need to maintain the continuous peace that they pride themselves with, which is the envy of many African countries.

However, the rate of undemocratic behaviour among many Ghanaians especially in this election period is appalling. Democracy is all about freedom of everything, but many people from different political parties are intolerant and find it hard to accept different opinions from different people. These people, even though they also preach peace, practice vice.

They result to insults when someone chooses to support a different political party. There are many individual stories on social media on how some people have been attacked in some regions of the country for supporting a presidential candidate who has minority supporters in the region. Some presidential candidates have also been attacked while on their campaign tours and rallies.

Even though we claim to be a democratic country, our actions and inactions tell and entirely different story. I personally cannot understand why some people can no longer publicly declare their support for any presidential candidate without attracting attacks and insults from people with different political backing. It is time for all Ghanaians to realize that democracy is inclusive of tolerance, respect to people’s opinion, and freedom of choice, among others.

In some instances, many years of friendship and relationships have been broken because of the way some people do politics. Some people, for their own political gains, have no regard of the consequences of spreading falsehood about public figures, misquoting and lying about them. They care less about the real facts of a matter.

I have personally lost some friends because I challenged them on false information they had shared on social media. They do not care about whatever information they share on social media as long as it favours them and their political party. We should all grow up as Ghanaians and fully embrace democracy and what comes with it.